HOD Week 1 Unit 1 Overview

This week we started on our new curriculum, Heart of Dakota Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory (HOD: BLHFHG), and I couldn't be happier with our switch! Our whole days are averaging about two and half hours and include the following: bible, music, poetry, copy work, history, calendar, language, spelling, phonics, writing, reading, story time, math, and independent reading. We also rotate through science, geography, art, PE, computer time, free time, outside play, PBS, and piano on a weekly basis. I know my kids are getting a great education! I was planning on blogging about each day but I find it much easier just to recap the whole week.

Our first unit was over the pioneers from Spain who left to settle St. Augustine Florida in 1565. The girls and even Ian loved how the history was laid out in story form. Ally told me that history is her favorite subject this year and her Daddy a social studies teacher couldn't be prouder! It is like we personally knew Pedro and Catalina this week from our lessons! We did our geography lesson on Monday and photos from that our in our first day blog. The girls learned how to do a timeline. They each have one for their history section of their binder and we have a big one that I use to model on.

This is our big timeline in the purple folder. I used the white board so the girls could copy the right spelling on onto their personal timelines that they keep in their binders. 

In science we did some experiments that we did last year in My Father's World (MFW) with how currents move boats and how animals with blubber keep warm. The girls still enjoyed them and I was happy that they remembered! They did have fun filling out their science note booking pages, especially the drawing part!

 

Here are the girls soaking their hands in ice water, one was covered in fat and one was not. They then went to working in their binders to fill out their science investigation notebook page.

For spelling this year I am starting out with list #2 in HOD but I am not doing all of the activities listed with it. The list so far is pretty easy for my girls but going basic and getting a good handle on it is fine, and Audrey really needs it!  I found some of the neatest spelling activities on Pinterest that we used this week and both girls, especially Audrey begged to do their spelling every day!! The girls each have a tic tac know sheet in a sheet protector that has several choices for them to do with their weekly words and they have to make a tic tac toe during the week! This week the competed with each other and were so excited when their "game" in in a scratch because they each blocked the other one off from getting three in a row! Here is a picture o f Audrey working on one of her activities, seeing how much each word is worth. She loved this one! Ally chose to do criss cross words where she had to intersect words that had a matching letter. They have a spelling section in their binder that they do this work in. They both made a 100% on their test this week! I test them to make sure they learned their words and to keep as a record. Audrey and Ally both completed lesson one in their Explode the Code books. Ally is on book 4 and Audrey is on book 2.

In math, Singapore 1B, I slowed them down a bit and we did one lesson a day over comparing numbers and adding and subtracting with key words like more then, fewer, altogether.  They did well but still get confused how when to add and when to subtract, especially Audrey who likes to hurry. I do mark their work wrong but I also have them go back and correct it for extra practice.  This is a hard skill but they will get it with more practice. I didn't take any pictures of this because once I was done introducing the work I let them work and it didn't take them long to finish! Audrey said her favorite subject is math because it is so short!

Our bible verse this week was Psalm 4:8 "I will lay me down in both sleep and peace, for thou Lord only makest me dwell in safety." The girls each had this memorized by Tuesday along with their song. I am very proud of them. I love how everything in HOD units flowed this week..the poem, verse, activities, history, reading!! The girls did not memorize the entire poem for the week but they got the meaning and and enjoyed it so I am please with that. In our copywork for the week they took one sentence a day to copy and we do this more to practice our handwriting rather than copying. They also illustrated their poem. On Friday for handwriting they have to do a journal entry with at least five sentences and illustrate it.

In our calendar time we work on mental math skills, adding, subtracting, time, number sentences, money, skip counting, dates, making numbers, and more. It is such a fun and easy way for them to do math each day and they are really good at it! We also work on our Daily Language Review and the girls did very well with it! They were able to correct all of the mistakes in the sentences we had to fix. They do this in their binder. We also cover some language in HOD but one day a week so by doing DLR each day they get a little each day and I like that. Our writing program his year is IEW Bible Hero's. We worked on making an outline and retelling it along with a review of adjectives and nouns. The girls did very well and I was so happy that they remembered about nouns and adjectives from last year. Next week we will do our first big writing of the year.

Our art activity was to make a shield to show how God keeps us safe and the kids LOVED it! I did not have any foil so we painted, an art that my kids cannot get enough of! Here are some shots of them working on hard on their art.

 Ian and his shield. 

Audrey and her shield. 

Ally and her shield. 

For reading this week the girls did their required HOD readings from the Beginner's Bible and were able to answer all of the comprehension questions. The book is a level 2.4 and is a bit easy for them so they also had to read a book independently each day and on Friday chose a literature response to share one of those books. They each picked to make a book award. I gave them several choices but they both wanted to do this one for the first project. Here is their work! 

We did our storytime or read alouds as I call them with our reading. The book we are reading is called Benjamin West and his cat Grimlikan, which is a old book and a level 5.5. It took a bit for the girls to get into it but they are starting to like it know. I have to explain a lot but it is good to expose them to the language of this book and the time period. They are doing great with all of the concepts we are discussing and practicing like character, story mapping, biography, and our Godly character trait of responsibility. I also decided to give them a bit more responsibility and help with cleaning the house. I gave them each a job that was age appropriate and we worked together to clean the house. This is really important with a new baby on the way ;)

We spent alot of time outside this week enjoying the wonderful weather! Our PE consisted of going to the park, taking a walk, and riding bikes! I could not have asked for better weather for the first week of school.

We had a great first week of school and are loving HOD and are looking forward to week two!! The girls will both start piano lessons so that should make the week extra fun and exciting.